Flipping through the channels the other day, I couldn't help but stop on the MuchMusic channel.

There in front of me was a show Video on Trial, which features a series of supposedly know-it-all guests who carelessly toss about foul language, sexual innuendos, and just about anything else to grab the attention of their mainly youth audience.

The videos “on trial” don't even provoke any kind of harsh judgment, yet the guests are all too willing to give it—sensationalized, trashed up, and dumbed down.

I don't ever remember seeing such a show on MuchMusic growing up with Canada's famed music channel in the 90s. MTV, on the other hand, has a notoriously trashy and raunchy reputation that Canadian television executives must have decided was needed to compete in the fast-paced television market, in a race to the moral bottom.

While it must have been a win-win for TV executives and musicians, the Canadian public has lost — at least the highly impressionable youth.

I can only imagine what parents my age think when letting their children watch MuchMusic. They probably see it the way I did, as a benevolent and entertaining channel featuring relatively tame musicians.

I must also be pretty naïve with television today because I was under the impression that cursing, nudity, and sexual references were not allowed on prime time, but it seems to be creeping up more and more.

The TV ratings system, which displays symbols and disclaimers prior to the start of racy programs, is not very efficient, but it was doomed from its inception. The laxity of other forms of media, as well as social trends forces program broadcasters to conform with the “norm,” but that doesn't get them off the hook; it can only reinforce the negative elements of society in a vicious cycle of “TV reflects society,” and vice versa.

Apparently, MuchMusic does not fall under the guidelines of the CRTC, or does it? Of course it does, but it turns out the CRTC is fairly lax when it comes to coarse language, sex, and violence.

And it isn't just the gangsta rap videos that are highly offensive, it's everyday pop artists like Lady Gaga and Katy Perry.
In the past, Canada's music television station would save more of its racier videos for a show called Too Much 4 Much. It featured “banned” videos and would ask a panel whether the videos were indeed too much for the public. So long to that.

While TV violence has been shown to make children more aggressive, fearful, and desensitized, swearing has created a “grunt culture,” according to Mediawatch-UK, and TV sex promotes a number of questionable issues for young people, are we simply just breaking off the chains of the repressive past or are we digging our children into a hole?

— John O'Connor